1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer integrated circuit (IC) card, such as a PCMCIA card, and in particular to an IC card connector which allows a socket or a jack to be inserted such that it is positioned parallel to a face of the IC card.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a personal computer has a plurality of integrated circuits (ICs) or large scale integrated circuits (LSIs) mounted in it for connection to external devices, (e.g., photomagnetic disk drives, CD-ROM drives, or token ring networks) and also includes a printed circuit board with a dedicated connector that is attached to the body of a computer.
A printed circuit board on which a discreet IC or LSI is mounted can no longer be attached to an A4-sized notebook or an A5-sized sub-notebook portable computer, such as, for example, a ThinkPad (a product of International Business Machines Corporation) because the size of the computer case is limited.
The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) for the standardization of personal computer IC cards, such as memory cards, was established in the United States in 1989, and determined the standards for personal computer IC cards. Accordingly, an IC card that conforms to the standards is called a PCMCIA card.
Since the size of a PCMCIA card is standardized, and since various integrated circuits are packaged on this card which is almost the equivalent in size of a business card, many recent portable computers include a slot for such a PCMCIA card. However, a disadvantage of such PCMCIA cards is that it is difficult to attach a connector for an external device to the PCMCIA card because it is extremely thin, about 3 to 10 mm.
One technique which has been proposed to resolve this shortcoming is shown in FIG. 1 and involves the use of an intermediate conversion cable 106 to connect a PCMCIA card 102 to an external socket 104. A disadvantage of this structure, however, is that an attachment portion 108 of the PCMCIA card 102 can be easily damaged when the conversion cable 106 is pulled.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,385,479 discloses a structure of a modular jack connector that is composed of a flat plate member which extends from one end to the other and parallel to the face of an IC card, wherein is formed at one end a hole having a freely opened and closed cover that, when open, permits the insertion of a modular jack so that the jack is positioned perpendicular to the face of the IC card.
Since U.S. Pat. No. 5,385,479 discloses that a modular jack must be inserted such that it is perpendicular to the face of the IC card, when another PCMCIA card is inserted adjacent to that card, it is possible that the modular jack will abut upon the newly inserted PCMCIA card, thereby making it difficult to insert the modular jack or preventing the PCMCIA card from being coupled with a connector.